Before I moved in, Brendan lived in the house for two years. He took buying the house seriously, and bought "adult" furniture (i.e., not from Ikea). The house was cute and looked polished when he first moved in - but without anyone else in the house, it began to look a bit like a bachelor pad - except in gigantic scale. The combination of a stressful job and a long commute meant that he had very little time or energy to keep things clean, and once he moved in everything from his parents' house, there was a lot to organize. And this, my friends, is what I moved into on May 1.
(No, I don't have any "before" pictures - I think I just really wanted to forget that little episode in our lives! But trust me, there was a lot of stuff, and while some areas were organized, many needed a little work.)
Being the neurotically organized person that I am, I had a few minor breakdowns in the first few weeks. Moving into a house with someone you love and merging your lives is stressful, and the lack of storage was a bit.....overwhelming. But we got through those weeks together with a lot of compassion and love - patience didn't hurt, either. We slowly but surely chipped away at the mountain of my stuff, and made room for my life in his house.
I am now the proud occupant of my "office," which is actually the formal dining room. We discussed all sorts of possible locations for a desk for me, but it became pretty clear that any desk area was going to be a bit of a squeeze. The dining room is not normally used for anything, so we set up my printer, computers, and some of the office supplies downstairs. The whole thing can be moved somewhere else or stowed away if we have company over, and the space in the dining room is HUGE compared to where I would be working otherwise. Take a look:
Not too bad, right? Don't mind the clutter still in the corner - it's a pile of things to bring to my new desk at work. But this space is perfect for me - both space-wise and feng shui-wise.
Brendan has been really, really wonderful about working hard to get the living spaces in the house organized, and I have to say, that is what's really made me feel welcome. He knows I'm obsessively neat, and even though he isn't, he's trying his hardest to make sure everything is clean for me. It will take a while until everything is taken care of, but the massive progress we've made has helped make me more patient for the rest of it to be finished.
Cleaning isn't all we've been doing, though - we've been having fun too! I have my garden, and we have been catching a few movies (Pirates = meh, X-men = awesome). There's been some cooking out, some shopping, and some snuggling going on too:
The kitties are getting adjusted to our new definition of "home" too - Mimu isn't totally comfortable yet, but we're getting there. And Meadow and Lily like that I'm here - I feed them earlier in the morning!
The next few weeks will be busy, but I'll do my best to come by more often and write more. I'm on a steep learning curve right now at work, but things will (hopefully) calm down and I'll get into the rhythm of things.
Hope you are all having a wonderful summer so far! Did anyone grill anything exciting yet?
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